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astronomy Feature Archive of Articles

This listing shows you every single article in the Astronomy Site! The articles are shown in date order, with the most recent articles on top. You can also use the search feature to search for something specific. These listings are shown 10 articles to a page.

On June 8, 2004 millions of people witnessed an event that no one still alive had ever seen: a transit of Venus. Another occurred in June 2012, but it was the last for over a hundred years. What is a transit of Venus? How did it help to work out out the size of the Solar System?

What is everything made of? What makes the Sun shine? "The Magic Furnace" relates the tale of how science answered these questions. The book tells a good detective story with great characters, and clues include the Big Bang and the biggest explosions in the universe.

The night sky is full of starry birds. Here is a selection, ranging from the majestic swan to the exotic birds of the southern skies: the peacock, bird of paradise and toucan. There is also an emu whose image appears not in the stars, but in the dark nebulae.

Our Solar System is pretty amazing. There's a planet that orbits lying down and a surprising number with rings. The Sun is losing mass at the rate of 300 million tons a minute, but it's nothing to worry about. And how did bits of Vesta end up on Earth?

Four moons circling Jupiter. It was a sensation when Galileo discovered them in the early 17th century – and they're still sensational! One is bigger than a planet. Another seethes with volcanic activity and has mountains taller than Everest. And which one has an ocean that could harbor life?

Tromsø, far to the north of Norway, attracts summer visitors to see the midnight sun and winter visitors to see the aurora borealis. The Northern Lights Planetarium is the northermost planetarium in the world. It's worth a visit at anytime, but extra welcome if it's too cloudy to see the sky.

Isaac Newton's thinking about gravitation really was stimulated by seeing an apple fall, but not on his head! Find out more about the troubled child and and indifferent school pupil who became a dominant figure in science, and still is nearly three hundred years after his death.

Hanny's Voorwerp was first seen in 2007 - a strange blue blob in the constellation of Leo Minor. Since then it has been imaged by large telescopes in visible light, ultraviolet light, infrared light, radio waves and x-rays, but astronomers still don't entirely agree about the mystery object.

Astrofest 2012: "The Universe under one roof." We saw aurorae and learned about solar storms, dark matter and the beginning of the Universe. There were telescopes galore and an unusual demonstration of spectroscopy.

Valentine's Day. Is it a romantic day or one invented by greeting card companies and sellers of luxury goods? It certainly isn't an astronomical holiday, but whatever your view of the day, you can enjoy this selection of cosmic valentines.